A swampy blog of uncertainty, mud and mirth.
Weaved together with lyrical reeds of true stories and imagined happenings.
What is, may not. What's not, may be.
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Saturday, October 07, 2006

Vicissitudes

Several weeks ago, I was exhausted after my busiest week with 17 scheduled hours. This week my hours plunged to... 6 1/2 hours. That's a loss of more than half of my income, with four students going abroad and several cancellations, and the continuing unstable circumstances at the my second client. Next week will be quiet too, but the subsequent week should be back up to 17 hours or more. It is very much a case of feast and famine.

In the meantime, I've had a chance to dig into Ideas, the book my sister gave me for my birthday gift. It, along with anything from Jared Diamond and Steven Pinker, is a book that makes you feel truly knowledgeable after every page you read. It nicely lays out the development of ideas from time, to the Bible, to the early development of psychology etc.

4 comments:

Work was messy again today with my friendly administrator failing to change a lesson as she said she had changed, leaving me drinking tea at Esquires for two hours till my first class actually begun.

But it wasn't all bad - I have got some really good feedback from one of my students today in that he has already felt new awareness about his speaking and listening.

Another student, who is probably one of the coldest, most emotionless professional, brutally direct people I have ever met, apparently gave me high praise in a training session. This was leaked to me by another student who warned me that I might be in for another few students. I'll be meeting the HR person responsible for another wing of the company tomorrow, so I might be teaching students who aren't staid auditors...

So provided stability of working hours returns, I'm in for a busy time.

The meeting today was fascinating - a whole new opportunity for me to teach a grammar seminar to native speakers! Strangely it could involve me also getting flown down to Wellington to train down there...

My mind boggles. Quite lucrative too - I have to think of a number (not 1 to 10).